US poet and philosopher, 1803-82, author of Representative Men, The American Scholar, Brahma, Self-Reliance, History and numerous other works

Fishburn and Hughes: "An American poet and essayist who travelled to Europe in 1847-8, where he met Carlyle. He became one of the major exponents of the New England 'Transcendental School'. The philosophy of the movement, which had strong mystical and religious undertones, operated on him as a liberating force. It was based on the superiority of insight over logic, the unity of nature and the innate goodness of man. Many of Emerson's poems and essays elaborate the ideology of transcendentalism, as do the articles which he contributed to The Dial which he founded in 1840 as an organ of the movement.

The Other Death, CF 263; 226: 'The Past', which first appeared in the collection May-Day and Other Pieces (1867), begins with the lines: 'The debt is paid, / The verdict said', a statement that no power can alter what has been, for reality is irrevocable: 'Not the Gods can shake the past, nor the devil can finish what is packed / Alter or mend eternal Fact.'

The dry remark of the character Patricio Gannon that Spanish literature is so boring that 'it makes Emerson quite superfluous' does not reflect Borges's own opinion. Borges dedicated a poem to Emerson, declaring how vitally present Emerson's name remained to him and attributing to Emerson a nostalgia for a life 'not lived' which reflects Borges's own regrets (Sel. Poems, 189)." (66)